Upgrading a slackware 12.1 kernel (2.6.24.5-smp) to a 13 kernel (2.6.29.6-smp)
 

Hi,

I've been able to manually upgrade a slackware 12.1 kernel to a 13 kernel.

I had to:

- Upgrade the package manager (pkgtools)
- Install xz (utility for xz archives, slackware 13 uses this format for packages)
- Change /etc/fstab to use sda instead of hda
- Change /etc/lilo.conf to use sda instead of hda
- Install the new kernel, modules, source
- Run lilo after booting with a slackware 13 cd (can't run lilo within slackware 12.1 if the lilo configuration is set to use sda devices)

The 2.6.29.6-smp kernel maps sda devices instead of hda devices on the system that i'm upgrading. The 2.6.24.5-smp kernel detects my disks as hda devices.

I'm trying to automate the kernel upgrade by making a slackware package but lilo won't write to the MBR if there are sda devices in the configuration which can't be detected as sda devices on my 2.6.24.5-smp kernel.

I have the following questions:

- Is there a way to upgrade a slackware 12.1 kernel to a 13 kernel without rebooting into a slackware 13 cd?
- Is lilo able to forcibly write to the MBR without checking for existing sda devices?

Thanks in advance.

maybe giving root disk by using kernel parametters. lilo will ignore the kernel parameters as it does not understand them and completely unrelated to lilo. /usr/src/linux/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt has a list. you can use it in the lilo boot, too.

Thanks for your reply.

The older kernel (2.6.24.5-smp) panics when trying use sda. I also tried passing hda=noprobe as a parameter, this didn't work either.

I know that the slackware 12.1 setup has a kernel called hugesmp.s by default, it does have SATA support right?

how about this; install lilo using hda, but at the boot pass root=/dev/sda to new kernel.

it should be, it's all in one install kernel